WEC 38: The Five-Finger Death Punch

While the allure of Fedor Emelianenko's knockout of Andrei Arlovski may not have worn off for some, there was still more MMA on the docket this weekend.

The always-entertaining WEC put forth it's January offering with lightweight champion Jamie Varner defending against the undefeated Donald Cerrone. Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver highlighted the undercard in a rematch of their epic clash last June, and on the whole, this card gave the fight fan a little bit of everything.

1. Instant replay

The finish to the WEC 38 headline bout may have left a sour taste in the mouths of many, but the lightweight champion Jamie Varner’s title defense against Donald Cerrone is the best fight to come out of this early January cluster of MMA so far—at least in my humble opinion.

The ingredients for an explosive contest were there.

There were entertaining exchanges on the feet and the ground that were highlighted by Varner’s cavalcade of take downs, devastatingly persistent ground-and-pound, and Cerrone’s gutsy survival act.

However, until these two inevitably meet again, this fight will have an anti-climactic finish looming above—the point of contention being the legality of Cerrone’s knee strike.

As a brief recap for those who missed the fight, Cerrone worked his way off the mat following a scramble, and upon getting back to his feet, lunged with a knee strike at Varner, who was still kneeling on the ground.

We all know that under the Unified Rules of MMA, any kind of kick or knee strike to a downed opponent is illegal. As a footnote, in order to be considered “down,” a fighter must have three points of the body in contact with the mat.

That’s where the Cerrone contingents' uproar comes into play.

When Donald threw the knee, it appeared as if Varner had only two points of contact with the mat (his feet) and just before the knee landed, the champion’s right knee touched the mat.

It’s unfortunate, but technically the illegal strike was warranted, as was the ensuing stoppage. I couldn’t help but peruse the Sherdog forums and all the cries that Varner was quitting and looking for a way out.

I know a lot of us would love to play the “Armchair MMA” role, but nobody outside of Varner can vouch for the degree of pain he was in.

However, if there’s one upside to come out of this, it’s that the controversial nature of the fight looks to have all but guaranteed Cerrone a rematch.

Between now and then, for Cerrone’s sake, it would probably be to his advantage to develop at least something resembling a takedown defense.

2. Where do we go from here, Jens?

Honestly, I’m probably a few rungs below most of you as far as my longevity as an MMA fan goes. I started watching the sport in early 2006 and as such, my first exposure to Jens Pulver was his bout with the then-unheralded Joe Lauzon at UFC 63.

I heard prior to the contest about what a trailblazer Pulver was back in the day and with no other impressions to go on, proceeded to watch Lauzon pummel Pulver into oblivion.

Thanks to the wisdom of the Internet, I’ve learned a bit more about “Lil’ Evil,” but as far as bouts that aren’t seven years old go, I’ve now watched Pulver drop five of his last six fights.

Granted, losses to the likes of B.J. Penn and Urijah Faber are nothing to be ashamed of, but facts are facts—Pulver entered the WEC undefeated at 145 pounds, he’s now lost three consecutive featherweight contests—all in decisive fashion.

Ken Shamrock catches a ton of flack from fans for sticking around and fighting far longer than he should. In Pulver’s case, I don’t want to say that it’s necessarily time to hang up the gloves because he can’t compete against the WEC’s top featherweights.

If Pulver intends to stick around any longer, it needs to be while he’s competing against the middle-echelon featherweights, or maybe fighters that loom around Cub Swanson’s level.

Simply put, I’ll accept Pulver being finished in the first round against someone like Urijah Faber, but when it reaches the point to where he’s being finished in the first round against the Robert “Buzz” Berry of the featherweight division, it’s time to call it a career.

3. Why was this rematch signed?

I understand this is an easy fight to sell to the WEC faithful because of how entertaining their first encounter was and no doubt just having the names “Urijah Faber” and “Jens Pulver” on the card will generate a bit more viewership. However, it just seemed like they were throwing Pulver to the sharks here.

Despite the many that enjoyed their first match, there wasn’t much there to lead you to believe that a rematch would fare differently. Factor in the motivation on Faber’s end to get back on track following the loss to Mike Brown and earn a rematch, and when their second encounter ended, I found myself wondering how the first fight went 25 minutes.

Pulver said prior to the fight that he felt Faber dictated the pace of their first contest, where the then-featherweight champion opted to showcase his rarely-utilized stand-up skills to keep Pulver at bay.

“Lil’ Evil” opted to try and press the action against a fighter who has pretty much made a career of fighting at a frenzied pace and in turn, Pulver played right into Faber’s hands.

One crushing left hand to Pulver’s liver spelled the end as Faber swooped in for the kill. Faber eventually finished with a guillotine choke, ending what looked to be nothing short of a complete mismatch the second time around.

4. What exactly did Danillo Villefort do to the San Diego crowd?

Right up there with a disappointing finish to the main event was the absolute annoyance of the San Diego fight crowd.

From Leonard Garcia mentioning the word “Texas,” to Mike Brown just being in attendance, to the brief time during the fourth round of Varner-Cerrone when they weren’t fighting at one million miles per hour, the fans booed everything except Faber and Cerrone.

Okay, maybe not everything so much as one glaring head scratcher was the crowd’s absolute disgust with Danillo Villefort following his TKO victory over Mike Campbell.

I can only assume the uproar had to do with the manner in which the fight was stopped, as nothing Villefort did afterward warranted the Shawn Michaels-in-Montreal-style reception he received afterwards.

Villefort and Campbell gave the crowd a high-octane four minutes of action, with rapid-fire transitions on the ground, an impressive powerbomb-esque slam from Campbell and an array of submission attempts by Villefort.

The action was halted when Villefort took Campbell’s back, sunk in a pair of hooks and flattened his opponent out on the mat. From there, Villefort let loose a series of constant, but unthreatening, ground-and-pound. With Campbell doing nothing to alter his position, the fight was stopped.

If the crowd really wants to aim their venom towards the cage, hone in those crosshairs on Josh Rosenthal for stopping the action, even though he gave Campbell multiple warnings to work and fight back—neither of which Campbell did.

5. Movin’ up the ladder

While Urijah Faber, Mike Brown and Leonard Garcia are the current cream of the crop in the WEC’s featherweight division, the division has so much more to offer in terms of talent.

Established featherweights like Wagnney Fabiano and Akitoshi Tamura are now being worked into the mix and in last night’s opening contest, fight fans saw another possible rising star in Jose Aldo, who further inched his way towards title contention with a first-round TKO of Ronaldo Perez.

My exposure to Aldo isn’t much. So, that I won’t pretend to be any kind of connoisseur of his fighting career. However I do recall it being talked about a couple months ago that Aldo was rumored to fight Faber on last night’s card.

Obviously things changed, and while Faber looks to have all but secured his rematch with Brown, Aldo may be one more win from a title shot of his own. Perhaps a bout with the loser of Brown-Garcia or Fabiano may be in order, but I’m curious to see what Aldo has against the 145-pound division elite.

His leg kicks against Perez looked vicious and given his solid striking game, a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a nice insurance policy for the Brazilian to fall back on.

Hopefully the WEC ups his level of opposition down the road.